Me And Sandy (Hurricane Sandy Poem)

This is the poem I wrote for the anthology Songs Of Sandy, it will be read live at the live event on January 19th 2013 at the Walt Whitman Birthplace to raise money to donate to Sandy Relief.
www.songsofsandy.weebly.com for more information.

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After reinforcing
the doors and windows
and everything else around the house
we waited for the storm.
We had no need for the hunt
The emergency supply hunt panic
as our house was well stocked
—almost too stocked
well before her name was ever spoken.
As the rain picked up and the wind got more intense
I spent the first night in my basement, finishing
work on the internet
watching ye old episodes of the Mighty Morphing
Power Rangers
on DVD
relishing the power while it was still there.
Attempting to prepare to be separated from it indefinitely.
Flashlights, walky talkies,
stack of books to my right,
I was set to lose power.
And we did—like we expected to.
I spent the first half hour writing a poem,
Before long,
I jumped onto my manual exercise bike
and started reading chapter after chapter of
the Game of Thrones series to candlelight.
"This isn't so bad, nice to have a break
from all that noise online." I thought
as I started playing old fashioned Pokemon on my battery powered Gameboy advanced
(which isn't so advanced anymore, but still fun.)
I went to bed around midnight
After 5 or 6 hours with no power.
When I woke up the next day around 9 in the morning,
the lights were on, the television, the internet,
everything had been restored to me
as if it went on a brief vacation.
For me, personally, the hurricane
was a mere inconvenience.
But for others...
for friends and family members
and fellow human beings
it was much, much
worse.
Houses washed away
Family treasures lost
Flooding up the streets, no power
no food, no rescue for the injured
for untold amounts of time in some cases.
Dozens dead—and this, just in the US
As the media vastly overlooks the devastation
in the other parts of the world.
And as I see the images of the houses under water,
the homes collapsed
the people whose lives
have been turned upside down
by mother nature,
I also see the newsfeed on facebook
Where people my age are complaining
about being without power for an hour
and how "miserable" this makes their lives.
I wonder if any of them realize
that for thousands of years we had no power
I wonder if any of them realize
that millions and millions in this world today
still live without those luxuries
I wonder if any of them
could put themselves into the shoes
of those who had lost
so much
and I wondered if any of them
even had the foresight
or the wisdom
to even bother
to try.

A Cultural Cancer (In Response To Sandy Hook)

I read this at a poetry event yesterday and everyone wanted a copy. So I decided to post this here. No, I am not defending guns in this poem--merely saying that in my opinion that gun control is just the frosting on a cake of problems that led to this tragedy and I'd like to see some of the other problems get as much attention. I could be wrong.

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Fighting a shooting
with gun control
is like fighting cancer with a wig
it feels good, looks good and is cheap
but ignores the fact that you are being eaten
from the inside out.
And as I look the reactions to the shooting
the fact that so many have made this about gun law
the fact that the media tries to blame this shooting on autism
the fact that the picture of the killer is on the front page
ten times as often as the pictures of the victims or their families
the fact that this killer who i refuse to give a name will be a household name
rather than the teacher who shielded her students from the bullets with her body
the fact that no one remembers in the amnesia of the human race that every time
something like this happens
these same debates
this same anger
this same bickering
and sometimes new laws pass
sometimes they don't
but by the end of it all
the energy and time and words that could have been used
to help create a culture more about compassion
and understanding, one that listens
one that takes away the stress
one like the rest of the first world that also has our guns
our violent movies, our violent video games
yet a fraction of our shootings and murders because they also have
community, and caring and a friendship and family
hearts and minds that are on the same page
prevention rather than penalty
knowing that love and now laws changes lives,
is all but drained in our haste to speak
rather than think.
Who is really thinking about those kids
who is really thinking about the kids of now and the kids of tomorrow
in a world where we act like we are the last generations that will ever see the fact of this Earth
leaving nothing to anyone after us
putting mounting pressure into every facet of our days with our 80 hour workweeks
get up and go not stop and think not stop and talk
double DVD set in the mini vans so the mom can be on the phone while driving and the kids can be distracted by Sponge bob and Dora
never having a relationship
never learning who your children are
never knowing what they want
what they need
never connecting
everyone connected with Facebook and twitter and iPhones and iPads
but never connected
everything fleeting
hearts bleeding
and you seriously think taking away a few more guns is the answer to this cancer
that has infected our day to day lives?
Newsflash, for the news:
we are all to blame when something like this happens.

And no amount of gun control
lawsuits
prison time
new laws
restrictions
anger
bickering
or bullshit
is going to bring those 20 children back
or stop the next 20 from dying
if we don't take off the f*cking wig
and start treating this cancer.

Crumbling of an Empire

Remember baseball cards?
What the crap happened to them?
Internet…
1999—there was a card shop
hobby shop
comic shop on every corner.
Now? I have to go 5 towns over just to find one.
And it’s small,
Really small,
So small I can’t get by the fat guy in the superman sweater
On my way to the batman rack.
I don’t mind so much, because I know that’s the only
Rack he’s ever going to touch.
But where do you buy cards now?
Target? Walmart?
That’s no fun!
My dad owned a card shop back when
Yu-Gi-Oh Nerds
Starwars Customizable Card kiddos
And Magic The Gathering Gatherers
Would throw away their allowance, birthday, and
Christmas money
In exchange for small pieces of cardboard.
I was never that stupid
I got them for cost!
Cuz my dad owned the store!
I’d buy whole boxes
Sort them out and ran a side business during my lunch hour!
In elementary school I’d trade them for twinkies
By high school I got cold-hard-cash!
I would convince these kids that a 50 cent card was worth
5 dollars! And this was before the internet! What did they know!?
I’d forge autographs to jack up the price
I bought my first car cause of my clever con-artistry.
And now, my empire has crumbled.
No one wants cards anymore
They want facebook credits
And instant downloads
I can’t get those wholesale!
And even if I could, they’d have no resale value whatsoever.
And you can’t forge an autograph on a fart app for your I-phone.
You’ve ruined my personal economy Internet.
You ruined it!
Now I gotta get a job…

Yuppie Mobile

She barreled down the street,

turned into my drive through
and quickly crashed into one of the polls.
I ran out, towards the giant
12 foot long, 7 foot wide yuppie mobile to ask
"Are you OK?"
The middle-aged woman with her badly died
flock of seagulls haircut turns to me,
stares at me,
and says,
"Why is your drive-through so narrow?!"
I see the family portrait on the back windshield,
and am happy that none
of her 5 kids
were in the car.

Deficit Attention Disorder

This is my second poem in the first Perspectives, Poetry Concerning Autism and Other Disabilities Anthology.

www.perspectivesanthology.com

www.localgemspoetrypress.com

 

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You say I have a disorder that constitutes a deficit of attention,
I appear, unable to stare,
for countless hours
forcing my focus on the frivolous frustrating formulas floundering before me,
on the black board.
Can’t do it without, shaking the leg,
bobbing the head,
looking around aimlessly,
My disorder constitutes a deficit of attention?
Perhaps the deficit is in what you would have me be paying attention to?
Biologically speaking,

omnivores have carnivorous tendencies,
like a cat shoots after a mouse
or a mole,
or a bird,
darting by faster than eyes can register.
What if those adolescent young men who make up the majority of the diagnosed
are just in conflict with their
personal primal personas?
Calling them beyond the classroom window into the no longer existing wild,
itching to move,
run,
chase and catch the quarry fleeing before them.
The leg, shaking,
the head, bobbing,
body moving,
the pent up, unused energy nature intended for us to use to spring out,
obtain and bring back our catch to the clan.
Your contradicting class room etiquette,
rules designed for simplicity of the structure rather than the welfare of the students is no match for mother nature.
And mother nature tells me,
I want to be outside…
That the answer is out there!

Not on your blackboard.

That’s one possibility, for the lack of attention.
Maybe…it’s your boring monotone,
your pitiful pedantic postulations presuming to judge a mind
on a number

that has lost our interest.
Or the fact you have us memorizing minute miniscule details
micro and macro
learning not for knowledge sake,
but to not fudge the statistics
on the tests decreed to be handed down to us by who gives a crap from
who the heck even knows land?
Now that,
could lose anyone’s interest.
But of course, that’s where our focus should be right?
not outside, at why the temperature is changing,
or looking at the oil spills.
Not at the billions
going hungry,
or the countless people below the poverty line, right here in our backyards.
Not at the fact that more than two and a half million people are incarcerated in the land
of the free,
Or that people are too afraid of lawsuits to help each other in the home
of the brave,
Not at the hunger or hatred,
the unemployment,
the pollution,
or the war.
Not at everything happening right here, right now, under our noses,
all of it going by, unnoticed and ignored,
for staring at the board 8 hours a day,
or at the computer screens in the cubicles, focused in on a single solitary
task with all the focus in the world,
ignorant of what’s going on out there in the real world,
and we,
the ones with A.D.D.
are the ones not paying attention? You say, I have a disorder constituting a deficit of attention.
Well, maybe, just maybe
the deficit, is in what you would have me, be paying attention to.

 

Aspiring Biology Major

She was only 5 foot 5
But she had double d's!
Or at least I think she did.
When she got up and walked over to me,
and they were bobbing up and down in that tank top
my ADD went out the window
And I paid good attention,
debating with myself,
whether those double D's were in fact double D's, or just plain old regular D's.
As she stood there in front of me, muttering little nothings in her native tongue,
something like "Hi, how are you, I'm blah blah," or something,
I couldn't help it,
the science major in me that didn't matriculate at any university I know of
wanted to test his hypothosis
see those milk producing jugs just a little bit closer.
Purely for scientific research reasons, of course.
But I never got the chance.
Apparently I hadn't learned the approach rituals for this species,
it involves something to do with...eye contact?
And after that cat claw turned bear paw,
knocking my glasses...I mean...scientific lenses off my face,
she turned to head back to her habitat.
I never got a closer look at those double D's,
but as she left, my eyes found their way,
to another point of inquiry,
one that you can only get a good look at, from the rear.
I sighed
and wished it wasn't too late to change my major
to biology.